


A Joy For Ever

by anomieow



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Drunk Francis, Frank’s self-loathing, Kinda, M/M, OR IS THERE, Oral Sex, Power Imbalance, Topson, handjob
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:40:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27003670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anomieow/pseuds/anomieow
Summary: Crozier’s decanter is empty. He rings for Jopson, whom he knows will appear almost immediately, almost as though he’d nothing to do but wait in the dark for a summons. Impeccable but for the one disobedient lock of dark hair he must constantly smooth back, he won’t mind if the captain’s gaze lingers longer than it ought on his trim form, his pale eyes. He does not deserve Jopson but he has him: two truths which both of them tacitly acknowledge.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Thomas Jopson
Comments: 14
Kudos: 55





	A Joy For Ever

Crozier’s decanter is empty. He rings for Jopson, whom he knows will appear almost immediately, almost as though he’d nothing to do but wait in the dark for a summons. Impeccable but for the one disobedient lock of dark hair he must constantly smooth back, he won’t mind if the captain’s gaze lingers longer than it ought on his trim form, his pale eyes. He does not deserve Jopson but he has him: two truths which both of them tacitly acknowledge.

Indeed, Jopson appears right away, bearing the bottle in one hand and a clean glass in the other. The familiarity—the presumption—should rankle him, but he’s grown used to it. Besides, how could he be angry? Look at Jopson’s face all gold and pink in the amber light, the subtle fullness of his lips. His eyes are bright, watchful. Were he a younger man, Crozier would hate in Jopson all he himself lacked: charisma, neatness, inscrutability—to say nothing of the beauty and shapeliness of him, luminous and trimly joisted where Francis, even in his youth, seemed to be rigged of spare parts, an ill-proportioned thing. Jopson sets the bottle and glass down, pours, and then busies himself about the great cabin with his rag. Francis’ gaze is lecherous, unflinching. _A thing of beauty is a joy for ever._ A stray line, in his haze he cannot quite recall... it is the time of evening, and he is far enough into his cups, that his head swims; his limbs seem to bob in space. He feels himself filling, sluggishly thickening, in his breeches—does nothing to conceal it. Jopson glances over his shoulder, meets his leer with a soft, angelic smile. 

“Is there, ah, anything else, sir?”

“Actually, Jopson...” His cheeks burn. “I could use your help... getting ready for bed.”

“Surely you’re not that drunk?” His smile is the soft and guileless thing it always is but something in his gaze shifts, sharpens. 

“Jopson, you know damned well what I am asking.” 

“Oh, sir. You know how I feel about euphemisms.” A touch reproachful. He sits down on the cabin table, leaning down on one hand so his breath traces Francis’ cheek. “If you’re to get anywhere you must use your words—“

“Goddammit, Jopson—“

“—and remain calm. This sort of excitement is terrible for a man of your age.” 

They ought to be past this, now: he ought to be past it. How daunting it is to ask for what he wants: the humiliation of looking it in the eye, shaping it into spoken language. It’s sour on his tongue, for he knows how it looks—how it _is_ —a sodden, middle-aged captain requisitioning the services of his fine young steward only because his station allows it. Jopson would not look twice at him in a crowd: hardly does now. 

“My cock,” he mutters venomously. “I want you to frig me, Jopson. If you will deign to do so.” 

“Always a pleasure, sir,” he says with that earnest nod of his. “In the bed, or will here do?”

“Here will be fine. Would you—kneel? Please?”

“Kneel, sir?”

“I would have you kneel. If you would.” 

He nods again and kneels, laying his hands on the fastenings of Francis’ trousers. “Why, you’re hard already, sir! What a pleasant surprise.” 

There’s a hunger in Jopson’s eyes as he draws out Francis’ prick, a blushing pink thing, stocky and ever so slightly crooked. He sometimes, when Francis has been particularly good, will apply the supple sparkling heat of his mouth, his tongue: but it will never do to ask. It is distasteful to him, and unless it is offered freely it is not worth having. 

Jopson reaches up and strokes Francis’ lip. “Open up, sir, there’s a good lad,” he murmurs as he dips his fingers into the whiskeyed well of Francis’ mouth. Once wet enough to slick his palm he withdraws them, and Francis feels their absence as a pulse in his throat. If he’d—Christ, but that’d be too much to ask for, just a light little cupping of his throat. A soft and affectionate squeeze—enough to blur and flicker the edges of his vision. His prick gives a little twitch against the cupped heat of Jopson’s hand. 

He raises his brow and his cheeks seem to pinken. “Excitable tonight,” he murmurs. Fucking Christ, look at him kneeling there, stroking him with the vacant satisfaction of a contented cat. He takes pride in his work, and no lie. The thick lashes, the lips slightly parted: it is a countenance not of passion but of proud, quiet accomplishment. He knows the rhythm of Francis’ body in this matter as he did in all others: how to dress him is nearly a dance, how his day is adroitly parceled into tasks for him as though he’d done it himself.

Suddenly he straightens onto his knees and lowers his mouth onto him. A neat, swift motion, nearly like a snake striking. 

“Jesus,” Francis says, his hand coming to rest in Jopson’s dark hair. Jopson holds his gaze calmly. Pale and fathomless depths. Francis imagines, once again, a hand on his throat, that same clapping down resoundingly on the pale, doughy width of his arse. How it might be improved by even the hand marks of someone so lovely. Francis’ crisis is a slow one: he thinks of a stone dropped in water, concentric circles chasing one another across the water’s surface. And of Jopson sweating at the work of disciplining him: flushed, tasting of salt and violet water. “Jopson, I’m — Jesus, Jopson, please be careful—“ But Jopson takes it neatly, his eyes dancing as he drives his mouth down to the root. 

“You’ve worked ever so hard, sir,” Jopson says, rising to his feet. “You deserved this.” Then from his pocket he draws a handkerchief and dabs delicately at his mouth. _Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing / A flowery band to bind us to the earth_. He smiles ruefully.

“Now, will that be all, sir?” His eyes are—locked up, somehow. Glitteringly inscrutable.

“Yes,” Francis says. “Goodnight, Jopson.”

Jopson nods, that opaque single nod of his, and leaves as quietly as he’d entered.


End file.
